Arkansas Turfgrass Association – Interview with Kyle Sanders, Arkansas Turfgrass Association President

January 30, 2019 | Arkansas Turfgrass Association | PODCAST

PODCAST: PLAY IN NEW WINDOW | DOWNLOAD

SUBSCRIBE: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

Arkansas Turfgrass – Interview with Kyle Sanders, Arkansas Turfgrass Association President

Turf Zone: Hello, and welcome to the Arkansas Turfgrass Association’s January Turf Zone podcast. Today, we’re talking to Kyle Sanders, ATA President and Co-owner and Operations Manager at Sanders Ground Essentials. Welcome, Kyle.

KS: Thanks, Julie. Thanks for having me.

TZ: We’re so glad you’re here and we’re so glad you’re going to share with us a little bit about  the association and the exciting new things coming up. But first, can you give us some quick background on your career in turfgrass?

KS: Yeah, I don’t have a formal education in turfgrass. I went to college and graduated with a degree that had nothing to do with turfgrass management. But I got into the industry about 14 years ago in 2005. And this goes back to my brother who is the co-owner of the business with me. He started just as a neighborhood lawn guy the summer before his sophomore year, just mowing yards out of the back of a pickup truck, had five or six yards. The next summer, before his senior year in high school, that six or seven had grown to about 20. By the time he graduated high school, he was mowing all the time. He decided to go to work full-time after high school and he started to grow our business to, at that time was just offering mowing services, and he had a vision for our company to be a one-stop shop for all your turf needs. So he started employing a landscape designer and we started working for homebuilders, going from house to house, to anything from dirt work, sod work, sprinkler system installation, patios, retaining walls, drainage, whatever. You name it, we’d done it all.

Well, during that time, some of our customers would ask did we treat yards? We said no, that’s not something we do right now. Well, the business kept going. That was between 2000 and 2004. The business continued to grow and he added employees to the point where it just became more than he could manage by himself. So he gave me a call and asked me if I would entertain the idea of moving back home, moving back to Benton and going into business with him and help run this business. We did, and at that time, I moved back and was over our landscape crew. So I’ve been out before with a group of men, doing any of the things that I listed before.

That continued until about 2008, until the housing market fell out here and across the nation. When that happened, we had to find a way to get more business. That’s when we started really focusing on getting commercial maintenance customers and we decided to go into weed control and fertilization. At that time, I didn’t know anything about weed control and fertilization. I started taking classes, going to short courses that the University of Arkansas offered, and even started attending the Arkansas Turfgrass Association conference to try to gain knowledge, to try to gain some understanding of what we were doing. With those two things that were offered and through the school of hard knocks, we learned exactly what TO do, and more importantly what NOT to do when it comes to turfgrass management.  And so, for the last 12 years, basically what we’ve been doing is just slowly growing our weed control and fertilization aspect of our business to where it is today, and that’s kind of my background. I am a self-taught, self-made person when it comes to the do’s and don’ts in the turfgrass industry. And like I said, unfortunately, the school of hard knocks has taught me a lot more about what NOT to do and that’s what I’m trying to do here with our new association.

TZ: That’s awesome – I love that you really learned by literally getting your hands dirty and that the association was such a big part of the formal training you do have, which was probably a little more effective since you had that experience of learning the wrong things the hard way.

KS: Absolutely it did. There were times we looked back on some of the decisions we made early in our career in the turfgrass and managing turfgrass and now the recommendations, we thought what we were doing would be good and looking back on what we know now and the information provided to us by the University of Arkansas, by the speakers brought into the conference, we realize, this is why we were having problems. Because we were not, didn’t know, we were not paying attention—we really didn’t know any better, as to the best management practices.

TZ: So knowing that the association was such a big part of you growing and learning your business, how did you go from going to those classes and attending short courses to now becoming president of ATA?

KS: Well, what happened is at the time, we had an extension agent that is now at the University of Perdue, Dr. Aaron Patton, who was the extension agent for the University of Arkansas. In 2010, we had an abnormally wet, very similar to this year, very wet year in the state of Arkansas. We had more rainfall than normal, and at the time I believe it was the fifth or sixth wettest fall that we’d had. We were working for a local high school, and they had basically a community field, it was a natural grass field that, there was approximately almost eight or nine inches of rain in a week’s period and they played six football games on that field – everything from high school, junior high, junior varsity, eighth grade A, B games, etc – high traffic areas. This was the last game of the season. We got a call on Monday morning that, hey, our field is, looks like a cattle arena. And it literally did. There was hardly any grass left on the field and it was nothing but mud and dirt and it was completely torn up. Well, it was November and this time and it was cold and the grass was going dormant, but they had to play soccer on this field in the spring.

So what we had to do is think outside the box of how are we going to get the field established starting mid-November to be ready to play soccer on in March? So I contacted Dr. Patton, who was our local extension agent at the University, and he gave me some ideas on what to do and basically we ended up renting a double-drum roller and I spent a day and a half on this field trying to re-level it. And once that was done, we aerated it and spike aerated it a couple of ways and tried to loosen it up as much as we could. We planted ryegrass on the field and just kind of sat back and hoped it would work. Well, it did. The ryegrass germinated, it came up and they were able to play soccer on it that spring, but because of all the damage that was done, there wasn’t a lot of bermudagrass that was able to return. Some did, but we ended up going in and overseeding again in May of that year with a bermudagrass blend once again, planting it in May and June, needing to play on it in August. With Dr. Patton’s help, and some recommendations from him, we put that out. Everything grew in, it turned out to be a beautiful field.

And so, as part of that, we had some before and after pictures taken of what was severe damage and not a lot of turf in October, and then the following August in the same place, there’s nice, beautiful, lush green grass for the high school football team to play on. Dr. Patton knew what we had done, so as part of the ATA conference, reached out to us and asked if we would be willing to present what we did because it was an out-of-the-box thing that a lot of times you don’t experience that. So I agreed and put a presentation together and made it part of our conference during one of the sports track education days. Doing that, I was able to meet some of the professors who were in attendance and sat in and listened to some of the classes. Basically they had an opening on the board and they asked, they said “We really enjoyed your presentation, we think you might be a good fit for our board. Would you be interested in doing that?” I agreed and got on the board and the first couple of years just kind of sat back and watched. I just thought how could we make this amazing organization that’s been around for 30 years, how could we improve it just a little bit? What could we do together to improve the organization?

And so as time went on, an opportunity came to run for a board position and this is something I thought I’d want to do, so I told them that I would run. The fellow members of the board elected me, and here we are three years later. I’ve been in a leadership position for, I guess this is the fourth year, three years as president, one year as vice president. We keep trying to improve our organization year after year for the members of the organization across the state.

TZ: So you’re not only building your career, but also becoming involved in leadership kind of originated with the ATA conference. We’re just now coming off of the ATA conference that was held January 10^th through 11^th in Hot Springs. What are some takeaways from the conference for you personally and the association as a whole?

KS: The members are more engaged. They are coming to classes. Even if we have to be recertified every three years through the Arkansas State Plant Board. Used to, people might only come every three years, every third year just to keep their certification in line with where it needed to be. And now we are seeing people from across the state coming. And they’re coming to network with each other, to meet with our vendors, to see other turf managers across the state, and also to participate in our education process. And that’s one of the things that we wanted to do with our membership is really engage all the turf managers across the state to be part of an organization, an association that represents us all, because if one of us is facing a problem, I’m sure we’re not the only one in the state that’s having the same issue. So if we can address some of those things, and maybe provide some information to our members, we can all be better.

TZ: Absolutely. Aside from the conference, which obviously was a great success, what are some of the goals the association is working toward in 2019?

KS: Really expand our membership to all of our members across the state and we’re going to do that with a couple of great things that we’re doing. One is the podcast, The Turf Zone, that we’re doing right now with you, Julie. And we’re really excited about the opportunity to be able to talk directly to our members and to the turf managers across the state. And more importantly, put something in their hand, which is the launch of our Arkansas Turfgrass Magazine. We’re super excited to have a professional publication that is going to go out that has research-driven content in it. It has timely info and is just a way that we can communicate to all our members across the state. We’ve been using an email, and that’s great. Some people take time to read it, some people don’t, but they’re going to get this nice, full-color magazine in their hands. We do believe they would take time at night to sit down and maybe read the articles and keep abreast of what’s going on within the industry in our state.

TZ: That’s right. So the TurfZone is the umbrella under which all of that information that you talked about from the magazine, which will have a digital issue, and your podcasts will be found… what do you hope members get out of the TurfZone?

KS: Well, just like the podcast that people are listening to now, there’s going to be multiple formats for getting all the information in the magazine. Also there’s going to be a wealth of other resources from other turfgrass associations across the country. Event calendars, product spotlight, links to this podcast, and also links to the digital version of the magazine. Once again, it’s something that, if you’ve got to drive like I do, sometimes between our jobs that we have, if we’re going bid something, we’ve got a 20 or 30 minute ride into Little Rock or North Little Rock from where we currently located, this is something someone could pop on in the car and just listen while they drive, and maybe pick up some kind of nugget or information or something that they didn’t have before. Or figure out a product that they want to try next time they order supplies from their chemical supplier.

TZ: It’s really a very accessible platform, that the podcasts will be available pretty much anywhere you download your podcasts, so it’s easy to find. We really do hope that your members enjoy these resources and your education team, Dr. Karcher is really taking the lead on providing what’s relevant to your members in Arkansas for season and whatever challenges that you guys are facing as turfgrass managers. It’s clear that education is a really big priority for you guys. Have you seen some results and fruit from the effort your guys are putting in in the educational arena?

KS: Yes, we have. And one thing, that when I got started in the organization, like I said 12 years ago, I was wanting to go to these conferences and try to learn more. Well, at that time there was a lot of information being presented and talked about on cool season grasses. Well, I had a big issue with this because we don’t have a lot of cool season grasses in Arkansas. I bet across the state, the total population of cool season grass is probably less than 5%, I would assume. I wanted to really drive home the fact in our education that people are coming to this conference for… not only for recertification, but they want to learn something. Something that they can take back with them on Monday to their job that either is going to help them save money, help them make money, or help them be more proficient in what they are doing.

That was really our goal and I talked to our board about, let’s find timely topics and relevant topics. We don’t need to be talking about a lot of cool season grasses because our turf managers here within the borders of our state don’t manage a lot of cool season grasses. And that has been a big thing.

We’ve also seen our yearly attendance increase at the conference as far as people coming not just every three years, but actually coming year after year to be part of the conference, to network with fellow members of our association and fellow members of the industry in our state. We’re on a good swing, kind of an uptick. And even talking with some of the people that havae been involved with the association for twenty and thirty years, they’re really excited about the direction that the association is going right now.

TZ: Is there anything else you’d like to let our ATA members about know the importance of their support and involvement and collaboration with the association?

KS: I just want all the members, if you’re listening to this right now – I’m just like you. I’m a guys that’s out every day. We work when it’s hot, we work when it’s cold and we all face issues that we can learn from each other about. I want everyone in the state to be a part of this organization and we also want for everyone to give their input, give their feedback. We want to address topics that each person across the state is dealing with. We always ask for feedback and we get a lot of good feedback so when we plan for future events, that members know  “that’s an issue that I’m having, I really  want to go to that because they’re going to talk about something that I’m dealing with.” Once again to be able to help people save money, make money, or be more efficient. We want to provide a forum for discussion and a platform for information. Our association, we partnered with two great organizations: the Arkansas State Plant Board. We have one of our board members who is a member of the plant board. They provide timely and relevant information as far as topics for our state and also info on a national level as well. Also our partnership with the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. They’re a nationally known and well-respected turf program.

Dr. Karcher, like you mentioned earlier, one of our board members, does an absolutely outstanding job with our education every year. Dr. Mike Richardson, who is a former board member, and also Dr. Matt Bertucci. Those guys are just an awesome resource for the men and women of Arkansas and the men and women of our organization to learn from. They’re going around the country speaking and hearing what other associations are dealing with and hearing research from other professors like themselves. So they keep us up to date on the latest cutting-edge techniques along with integrated pest management strategies, and best cultural practices for turfgrass management. Not only for golf course superintendents, but sports field managers as well as the homeowner and commercial lawns. We want our association to be a leader not only in our state, but also in our region. We want to be the best we can be, not only for our members, but we want other neighboring states to look at us and say those guys in Arkansas know what’s going on, they’re very educated, they’ve raised the bar of our industry. And that’s just going to make us all better as a whole. We want to help every turf manager be the best that they can be and all of us work together to address and solve any kind of problems or issues they may encounter. That our goal as the board of directors. Each one of us has a passion for turfgrass, and this is how we all make a living so the better we can be individually, the better we will be collectively.

TZ: It sounds like we can expect some great and exciting new things from ATA this year and going forward. We’d like to thank Kyle Sanders for joining us today, and thank you for listening to ATA’s premiere podcast episode. Watch for a new podcast each month on The Turf Zone.